


Playing Straight Man

by Capucine



Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types, Robin (Comics)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Child Abuse, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Gen, Medication, psychiatric ward
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-25
Updated: 2016-07-25
Packaged: 2018-07-26 18:26:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 772
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7585249
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Capucine/pseuds/Capucine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When everyone around you believes you're crazy, and you're pretty certain that's not true, life becomes the crazy thing.</p>
<p>An alternate piece of backstory for Tim Drake.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Playing Straight Man

One step.

That’s all it takes out of line for the numbers to go higher.

Tim can’t remember which ones have high numbers in the hundreds, or the lower numbers, like doubles and singles. He knows he takes at least five different kinds.

And sometimes, the fact he’s on the pills (white, flat red, yellowish) isn’t enough. Sometimes, he has to go to the hospital, with his mother acting so so worried in the waiting room and the rubber room while the staff can see her, but switching back to her book when they’re gone.

He shivers in a hospital gown.

The thing is, he never threatens to die. Not ever. Yet, that’s what they file him under, and that’s why the staff looks disgruntled and underpaid. They wear their clean scrubs and dead faces and continue on caring for the crazies of Gotham.

Tim would probably be in a children’s ward if that were an option. But look, he’s a high schooler now, and the children’s ward is probably full (too far away, too long a wait) and so an adult ward will do. A fourteen year old among the mentally disturbed of Gotham is an a-okay setup, so long as the staff is attentive.

They’re not, but that’s fine with Tim.

He really doesn’t look forward to the hospital visits. He doesn’t want to go. But when he does, he is at least a little relieved to be there.

He is mostly left alone, left to books and board games and TV shows. It’s more privacy than the house staff watching his every move, reporting back to his parents on strange behavior, such as giggling while reading an unfunny book (in their estimation).

The doctors talk to him a little, ask him what’s wrong as they check boxes off on their clipboards, and he shrugs. Says he doesn’t know.

Another check mark, and basic health questions follow.

Some days, though, he does talk faster. Talk louder. Says the doctors here don’t listen, that they don’t pay attention, that he doesn’t know what’s wrong but _they’re not helping_.

And he usually stays longer when he does that.

Or they switch his pills, which makes for a few woozy days. Up is down, the floor seems to whorl a little, sometimes he forgets who he is—but he comes back. They either switch back or he adjusts. He’s good at that.

He likes and hates the ward. Likes, because he just is so calm most of the time. It’s easy, all he has to do is sleep, eat, and show up at groups. And no one can get to him here. 

On the flipside, he gets bored, and he cannot get out, a fact that makes it something of a prison. He has to wait for the doctors to decide he is ready, and god knows how long that takes. 

But at least they are extremely predictable. Most of the time, he’s right on when he’ll get out and back in to home. Also, it’s fairly predictable that it’ll upset the nurses if he flips the furniture upside down, even if he does slowly and with only the intention to read the tags because he’s read all the books he finds interesting.

The material isn’t waterproof.

He’d once thought that going to the ward would solve it. They’d know somehow what to do, and then he’d be fixed.

Unfortunately, the ward is really only a containment unit, playing at making everyone’s lives better by showing them how to budget their time, use a toothbrush, and talk about emotions as colors.

Sometimes they do art too.

Tim knows that one day, he might leave off on the pills. His mother says with sad, sad eyes that ‘Tim, you’ll never be off your meds.’ And they’re the sad eyes she uses when she’s at a funeral for someone she doesn’t care about.

But Tim is pretty sure he’s not crazy, most days. 

And his mainstay, at this point, is Batman.

Who is pointedly real, despite the rumors of him being a fake or a hallucination. Because not only Tim has seen him.

And Batman won’t save him, he doesn’t know he exists, but Tim thinks that someday he’ll save Batman.

It’s grandiose, but it’s what keeps him going at this point.

A man dresses as a bat and fights criminals at night. There is clearly little wrong with Tim in comparison, and therefore, he must not be as crazy as his mother claims.

It’s a hope. One day, he won’t have pills and he’ll be able to think.

And even think out loud, perhaps.

**Author's Note:**

> This is heavily based on my experience. Wrote it in the past couple days cause shit's been rough. Hope you enjoyed it.


End file.
